[Gllug] Dealing with "Word-Only" organisations

[general_email at technicalbloke.com]

On 05/11/10 17:25, Christopher Hunter wrote:
> As an aside - it is notable that NO labour government IT project has
> EVER worked properly, to budget and on time.  The Fire Brigade IT
> disaster followed the NHS one (the FB affair was quite effectively
> hushed-up, but a little research will reveal the whole ghastly mess),
> and every other government IT project has been an abject failure,
> without exception.
>
>    


Given that your desktop choices were DOS6, Win3.1 and OS2 (hooked up, if 
you were lucky, to a 28k modem) when labour came into power last you may 
as well say no serious UK GOVERNMENT IT project has EVER worked 
properly.  I guess we'll see if the tories can do any better in due 
course but uk.gov's track record with IT has been pretty lousy ever 
since they failed to finance babbage's analytical engine (and come to 
think of it Turing's ACE) properly.

I was quite young when the tories were in power last so I don't remember 
their reign in any detail but I'd guess the most complex working IT 
system they would have presided over (although developed under a labour 
GPO) would have been Prestel which, at its peak, only consisted of 12 
networked machines for the whole UK. Even that couldn't survive long 
once BT was privatised unlike France's Minitel which is still in use 
today and AFAIK still turning a profit thanks to a bit of foresighted 
early government subsidy.

Roger.
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